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this works

It's safe to say that unwelcome guests in your house, and I am not talking about tricky relatives here, are always an unpleasant shock. My worst experience ever was waking up one morning to find half a watermelon on the kitchen counter with rather large teeth marks on the bits of it that were left -that was one for the professionals- however finding that the rice krispies had been invaded by ants was a bit of a shock too.

Not being able to work out where they were coming from, and indeed where they were heading carrying their cereal fare aloft whilst practically waving at me, after a bit of necessary housekeeping I looked into ways of sorting out what was looking like a bit of an ant invasion. What's cute when watching "A Bug's Life" is a bit more sinister when crawling across your work surfaces and trying to break into the cookie jar.

I'm no ant expert, but I do know that Spring is the time of the year when they start to get more active, we get several impressive mounds outside in our garden every year, which is fine, but once they had decided our kitchen was an ant takeaway something, clearly, had to be done.

I remembered Nippon being around when I was little, along with a boiling kettle it was always my dad's weapon of choice where ants were concerned. It's a liquid is designed to be taken back to the nest by the worker ants where it kills the whole colony. A tube set me back a reasonable £1.99 from Robert Dyas, for 30mls, apparently enough to treat 3-6 nests, I was hoping we only had the one.

The plastic tube is covered by foil, which has to be pierced with a pin. It's common sense that the contents should be kept away from children and pets, the tube also suggests washing your hands after application. The clear gel inside is sugary and designed to appeal to ants, the active ingredient being "spinosad", which wiki informs me "kills susceptible species by causing rapid excitation of the insect nervous system". Nice.

I applied the gel to a small bit of plastic, as suggested, and left it in my cereal-and-foodstuff-bereft cupboards. You have to actually allow the ants to eat the bait for a few days, and change it every 24 hours as it dries out, a few drops suffice. This was relatively easy to do, and the ants were certainly keen to feast on this, whilst wondering what happened to the "snap, crackle, pop" no doubt.

The tube suggested it would take about 7 days to see results, and as promised in about that time our cupboard was ant free, and has stayed so since.

Prior to using this I had tried more humane methods, such as cinnamon which google assured me would work (it didn't), and I do feel slightly bad that I doubt eating this stuff was a pleasant experience for the ants, but needs must.

From my experience this liquid does seem to work really well, if you can live with having ants feeding on it for a few days before they die, and take care to keep it away from water sources and use sensibly, I think it is a good product. Nippon do make some special bait traps to be used in conjunction with this item, they are just little pots with holes in, and come with a tube of this liquid for about the £5 mark, they are a good choice if you are worried at all about pets or children getting near the liquid.

I recommend this product as sorting out our ant issue effectively and fairly quickly, at reasonable cost, unfortunately for the ants Nippon Ant Killer Liquid certainly lives up to its name!

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Fast and effective.

When I moved into my ground floor flat I noticed straight away there was a problem with ants, the patio was crawling with them and it was obvious there was a nest of them out there somewhere.

I had never really come across this problem before as this was the first ground floor property I've lived in, needless to say I was panicking as some of them had got indoors and I could'nt get a proper nights sleep until they were gone!

For the first couple of weeks I tried a few ant killer treatments i.e. sprays and powders , but they simply just did not work.In complete frustration I contacted the Council Office to ask for advice.They took my name and address and said they would send me some leaflets which arrived a couple of day's later recommending Nippon Ant Killer liquid.

I had to travel to my local garden centre to buy the liquid as none of the shops where I bought the sprays or powders from sold it.

The liquid comes in a clearly labeled 4 inch red and black 30ml tube with an easy to screw off lid, it is an insecticide used for the control of common black ants in and around the home, and a 30ml tube is enough to destroy between 4 to 6 nests.

It is advised to use the product in late evening by placing a couple of drops of the liquid onto a flat piece of glass, plastic or metal, this in turn should be placed near or on the ant run,but through experience I've found putting the liquid directly onto the concrete flooring works too.The drops should also be changed each and every day.

The ants are attracted to the liquid by the smell and it is used by them as a food source which they pass onto the Queen ant and the rest of the colony, the liquid is poisonous to the ants and once ingested they die and within 7 to 10 days all the ants should be destroyed.

I had my doubts about this product working after having such bad results with the sprays and powders, but I can honestly say this product works extremely well, from day 1 the ant activity got less and less, I used it for the recommended 10 days but the ants were gone within the week.

I've used this liquid for 2 summers in a row and still have the same tube so it has lasted me a while and luckily this summer there has been no sign of any ants.......not yet.

Dont waste your time and money on powders or sprays as I did,the liquid definately wotks and got rid of my ant problem.

The liquid is clear im colour and seems more of a gel than a liquid, and has no smell to it at all.Directions for use, ingredients and precautions are all listed on the tube and easy to read and understand.

It is advised to keep out of the reach of children and animals and to wash hands after use.